Alexander Monro has worked as a Parliamentary researcher, on The Times (London) foreign desk and as a general news and features reporter for Reuters Shanghai. He was previously a China analyst at Trusted Sources, where he wrote reports on political risk in China. Monro has edited a classical poetry collection, LAMENTS OF FOUR CITIES OF CHINA, and has co-edited an anthology of poetry about the East called DESERT AIR. In 2002 he was sponsored by the Captain Scott Society to trace the route of Genghis Khan through Mongolia on horseback. His articles have been published by The Times (London), The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian Arts blog, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, New Scientist, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. He speaks French and Mandarin Chinese, having studied the latter at the universities of Cambridge and Peking, and continues to write on contemporary China.

Books by Alexander Monro

The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of a Revolutionary Invention

by Alexander Monro - History, Nonfiction

The emergence of paper in the imperial court of Han China brought about a revolution in the transmission of knowledge and ideas. The first writing surface sufficiently cheap, portable and printable for books, pamphlets and journals to be mass-produced and distributed widely, paper opened the way for an unprecedented, ongoing dialogue between individuals and between communities across continents, oceans and time. THE PAPER TRAIL explores how the new substance was used to solidify social and political systems that influenced China even into our own time.